Canto

from John Howe;

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 12:46:09 -0800

Rather than wishes of prosperity and the like, I would wish upon all the quickening of heart that accompanies those moments of music, art, written word or wandered landscape when you are drawn out of yourself into something vaster and wilder of spirit, into those things which are part of us all but the property of none.

"The elements necessary for man’s life are water and fire and iron and salt, and wheat flour..."

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:31:04 -0800

“The elements necessary for man’s life
are water and fire and iron and salt,
and wheat flour and milk and honey,
the blood of the grape, and olive oil and clothing.”

- The Wisdom of Jeshua, the son of Sirach
(or, Ecclesiasticus of the Apocrypha)
Chapter 39, verse 26

'Demonbred' at Stardust Asylum

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:49:02 -0800

'Demonbred' at Stardust Asylum

Aello;

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:31:00 -0800

She of the whirlwind; the stormy one; storm swift.

(apologies)

The Onion

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:58:39 -0800

The onion, now that’s something else.
Its innards don’t exist.
Nothing but pure onionhood
fills this devout onionist.
Oniony on the inside,
onionesque it appears.
It follows its own daimonion
without our human tears.

Our skin is just a coverup
for the land where none dare go,
an internal inferno,
the anathema of anatomy.
In an onion there’s only onion
from its tip to its toe,
onionymous monomania,
unanimous omninudity.

At peace, of a piece,
internally at rest.
Inside it, there’s a smaller one
of undiminished worth.
The second holds a third one,
the third contains a fourth.
A centripetal fugue.
Polyphony compressed.

Nature’s roundest tummy,
its greatest success story,
the onion drapes itself in its
own aureoles of glory.
We hold veins, nerves, fat,
secretions’ secret sections.
Not for us such idiotic
onionoid perfections.

— by Wislawa Szymborska
(tr. Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)
from View With a Grain of Sand

(apologies)

City of Melbourne Identity by Landor (apologies)

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:59:00 -0800

City of Melbourne Identity
by Landor
(apologies)

"… The form speaks of the flight of the soul, which to reach the starry void must tear itself,..."

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:20:43 -0800

“… The form speaks of the flight of the soul, which to reach the starry void must tear itself, in agonizing pain, from the chains of matter…”

- The Cathedral by Jacek Dukaj

"I close my eyes and I keep seeing things Rainbow waterfalls, sunny liquid dreams Confusion creeps..."

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:23:09 -0800

“

I close my eyes and I keep seeing things
Rainbow waterfalls, sunny liquid dreams
Confusion creeps inside me raining down
Got to get to you, but I don’t know how

Call me, call me
Let me know it’s alright
Call me, call me
Don’t you think it’s now time
Please won’t you call and
Ease my mind
Reasons for me to find you
Piece of mine
What can I do to get me to you?

I had your number quite some time ago
Back when we were young
But I had to go
Ten thousand years I’ve searched, it seems enough
Got to get to you, won’t you tell me how

Call me, call me
Let me know you are there
Call me, call me
I wanna know you still care
Come on now won’t you
Ease my mind
Reasons for me to find you
Peace of mind
What can I do to get me to you?

”

- “Call Me Call Me”
Yoko Kanno & The Seatbelts / Blue: Cowboy Bebop OST 3

"A drawing is never really done. It is simply a glimpse, at a given time, of an idea. Drawings are..."

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:48:00 -0800

“

A drawing is never really done. It is simply a glimpse, at a given time, of an idea. Drawings are thoughts fixed in graphite lightly. They can be the best way to abandon an idea with no regrets, or a way to retain that fleeting something, to be revisiting months or even years later. […]

Now that it’s said and done, I’ve finally come to realize that it never really is, that pencils provide the perfect impermanence, the ultimate lightness of seeing, the line that is always between the lines in a sort of fractal meta-physicality – no matter how closely you depict an idea, there are always dozens more hidden within. [… W]hile practice makes good, perfect is always in the next sketch, that the only real line is the horizon.

It’s no coincidence that etymology provides such solace; with each drawing you draw yourself closer to two things: understanding the nature of the world around you and depicting in patient graphite the worlds you have within. Like two mirrors placed face to face, the artist is somewhere in that infinity of reflection and counter-reflection. […]

A drawing is never really done.

”

- John Howe,
“Drawing the Line Somewhere”

"When warm air rises, seeking the sun, cool air rushes in to replace it. That’s the way of the..."

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:16:54 -0800

“When warm air rises, seeking the sun, cool air rushes in to replace it. That’s the way of the world. Joy and youth and love flow ever upward. What they leave behind is the cold consolation of the wind.”

- “A Memory of Wind” by Rachel Swirsky
(apologies)

imaginarion

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:26:26 -0800

(inspired by a typo)

"But all has not been said, for words are the shadow and the light of things and things are only what..."

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:08:49 -0800

“

But all has not been said, for words are the shadow and the light of things and things are only what is being born and being;
And so when there is no bread we need only sit and await the new day, and the new day will bring us bread;
In the heart of the hungry man despair lays its traps and the man weeps and curses;

But all is not said,
And a man does ill to weep and curse when to sit and hope is well;
For as bread comes, comes one who does not know his name yet knows he is called by many names;
One to whom women speak, telling the secrets of women and those of the house and village;
And he who is to come depends on no one, has no one, has nothing: he must make his sandals and his pouches and weave his cloting and braid his belts;
For this he must find for himself food and drink and sleep and shelter and guard himself from the perils of solitude;
And he who is to come must go, always, for there is no whole or true coming or arrival without leaving and departure;

But all is not said, for he goes and comes and goes again;
And he who is to come will be unarmed and will refuse arms though they are made and adorned for him;
And he who is to come will be he who secures the roofs and foundations of your house, he who draws from death and the depths those who are all but lost, he who sees your city and your house because he can se the world, he who knows nothing and may be seen by all for what he is;

For all is not said because night follows day and the wise man sleeps until sunrise;
But the brave man’s eyes are open and he keeps watch for his brother;
And the woman who rules your house and the daughters she has given you, who knows more than your head, your heart, and your belly, accept the night and subdue it and so night works for your good and that of your people;
But he who is to come is he who arises against the night and says to it, Begone;
For this death comes and does his work like a good workman earning his pay;

But all is not said because absence and presence are not opposites but one same and single thing;
For as a moment takes no time though it seems that time is a succession of moments, so a man is not gone though he seems gone: where could he go? When?

No, all is not said because he has gone and returned and goes and returns and will go and will return;
For this when you sit in the kitchen of your house ask your wife and she will tell you to open your eyes by day and close them by night, that this is best to do, because he who came and went away is to return;

No, all is not said.

”

- Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer
chapter, “Down There in the South”

"The worst thing about sorrow is that it’s blind, and the worst thing about anger is that it..."

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:01:54 -0800

“The worst thing about sorrow is that it’s blind, and the worst thing about anger is that it sees too much.”

- Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer
chapter, “The End of a Dynasty”

"The sculpting was highly complex, one pattern shifted into another, and the geometry of congruent..."

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:14:00 -0800

“The sculpting was highly complex, one pattern shifted into another, and the geometry of congruent figures kept drawing the eye away from the light. It was not sculpture, of course, since no one had hewn and worked this stone of the Horn. The form, commencing from the first seeds, had eaten into the asteroid’s cold ground and heaved in a wave of nanotransformations until, particle by particle, there rose here the memorial of Ugerzo’s gratitude. But how much can be contained in a seed’s starting algorithms, in an architectonic code of crysthorn? […] Surely all this could not have been provided by the code of an initiating seed. […] It seems unlikely that the planners had written into the seeds the future position of every piece of Izmir mineral, ergodic autoprogramming doesn’t work that way, one must leave room for chaos. So if it wasn’t the hand of the planners, whose hand was it? Whose was the talent behind this carving? Who gave grace to the fragile angels, put blood lust in the brows of the stalagmite demons, framed the illusion of refractive flow through the Cathedral’s epithelium?”

- The Cathedral by Jacek Dukaj
(apologies)

"The swordsmith was not a mere artisan but an inspired artist and his workshop a sanctuary. Daily he..."

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:59:00 -0700

“The swordsmith was not a mere artisan but an inspired artist and his workshop a sanctuary. Daily he commenced his craft with prayer and purification, or, as the phrase was, “he committed his soul and spirit into the forging and tempering of the steel.” Every swing of the sledge, every plunge into water, every friction on the grindstone, was a religious act of no slight import. Was it the spirit of the master or of his tutelary god that cast a formidable spell over our sword? Perfect as a work of art, setting at defiance its Toledo and Damascus rivals, there was more than art could impart. Its cold blade, collecting on its surface the moment it is drawn the vapour of the atmosphere; its immaculate texture, flashing light of bluish hue; its matchless edge, upon which histories and possibilities hang; the curve of its back, uniting exquisite grace with utmost strength;—all these thrill us with mixed feelings of power and beauty, of awe and terror.”

- Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe
(Chapter XIII)

"Clouds of another life Wash across the sunlight Changing shape as they go by Thought I saw your face..."

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:40:18 -0700

“

Clouds of another life
Wash across the sunlight
Changing shape as they go by
Thought I saw your face there
But like them you just—

—disappear
Disappear into empty sky
Quietly
So removed from reason
Hey
Have you ever had to reason?
Hey

The eagle comes and goes
To somewhere much higher
When the silence grows
Can you hear it, sniper?

Visions and memories
Where some one once laid flowers
For the past and things to come
Thought you were gone
But I can feel you
So I —

—turn around
Turn around, yes, and there you are
Here again
Can you give it some meaning?
Hey
ask again, but you say nothing
Hey

Motion without sound
Ice inside the fire
The stillness in the storm
Silence hides the sniper

Eagles come and go
To someplace much higher
When the silence grows
Can you hear it, sniper?

What goes through your sniper’s mind?…

”

- “Somewhere in the Silence (Sniper’s Theme)”
Yoko Kanno / Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society soundtrack

Martin Klimas

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:27:00 -0700

Martin Klimas

“The Gossips” Norman Rockwell

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:42:48 -0700

“The Gossips”
Norman Rockwell

"It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture..."

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:08:21 -0700

“It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.”

- Miguel de Cervantes

'Beauty and the Beast' by Jaimes Alsop

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:06:05 -0700

'Beauty and the Beast' by Jaimes Alsop